Mass patient situations in which breathing oxygen should be made available to multiple patients are possible and for which there should be planning including provision for supplying breathing oxygen. Such a situation might be a mass casualty incident where many patients need emergency treatment, that is, where there is a mass patient need. A temporary facility such as a field hospital might be set up for a mass casualty or location where, for example, patients will be given medical attention for an indefinite period whether of a few hours or many hours. Or there could be situations in any building or premises in which a medically emergent situation might occur, such as (for just one of many possible examples) a temporary triage medical location or emergency premises where multiple patients are to be supplied with breathing oxygen. Without intent to limit the possible premises in which there could be an emergent situation where patients might need to be administered breathing situation, such premises could, for example, be a hospital, temporary hospital, field hospital, factory building, office building, hotel or other multiple story residence, such as of the type in which condominiums and apartments might be present. In such examples, the logistics of bringing in oxygen equipment can be a challenge. Premises can have passages, doors or other architecture that will challenge or make difficult movement or location/relocation of any oxygen equipment that could supply oxygen for many patients.
Another challenge for providing oxygen to patients in such settings is that personnel in charge of providing medical oxygen might not know in advance how many patients will need to be supplied, and where they might be located. Patients could be separated by walls, rooms or on different floors or in other locations where the need is present but where there could be a substantial distance between a patient and a sufficient source of oxygen.
In a similar sense, a challenge for providing oxygen to patients in such settings is that the time duration of need for oxygen might not be predictable. In the case of chemical spills or where damage has occurred that might take an indefinite time to remediate sufficiently to move patients to another location, oxygen might need to be supplied not only quickly but for an indefinite time without being uninterrupted. Problems can arise if oxygen must be supplied from large replenishment sources such as trucked-in large tanks, and then rerouted to mass oxygen system capable of handling gas cryogenic supplies.
In mass casualties or situations where there are an indefinite number of casualties, some of whom might be isolated from one another and yet must be supplied from oxygen in a reliable manner that does not require continuous individual monitoring, or where individual attention is not possible but must be centrally monitored by minimum number of attendants or medical personnel, the use of known types of individual patient oxygen cylinders can be completely unacceptable or impossible. Instead, mass oxygen distribution is preferable, and a quickly deployable system for reliably assured and precisely controlled mass oxygen distribution for an indefinite time is desirable.